Norilsk Nickel Extends the Expiry Time of Its Offer to shareholders of LionOre to 8:00 p.m. on July 23, 2007

OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel today announced that it has extended the expiry time of its all-cash offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of LionOre Mining International Ltd for aggregate cash consideration of approximately Cdn$6.8 billion, to 8:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on Monday, July 23, 2007.

This extension will provide holders of LionOre's convertible notes due 2011 with the opportunity to convert their notes into common shares of LionOre and deposit the resulting common shares into Norilsk Nickel's offer. This will enable the note holders to receive cash shortly after depositing such common shares to the offer as opposed to waiting until Norilsk Nickel undertakes a subsequent compulsory acquisition transaction. The notice of extension will be mailed to shareholders as soon as practicable and will be made available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

On June 29, 2007, following the confirmation that all of the conditions of Norilsk Nickel's offer were satisfied, the Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, took up all of the LionOre shares deposited to the offer. Upon full payment on July 3, 2007 for those shares tendered, Norilsk Nickel acquired control over LionOre.